iPod Touch becoming most preferred portable gaming device

As many of you will have heard by now, the Apple event, Let’s Talk iPhone, which occurred last night, marked the announcement of the company’s iPhone 4S. During the event the specs of the new device were discussed, at which point it was also revealed that games for the device were able to perform up to seven times faster than the previous device.

Another interesting discussion which occurred was the popularity of the iPod Touch, not only as a music player but as a portable gaming device. The man in charge of carrying on Steve Jobs’ legacy and new CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, stated that ‘the iPod Touch had become the world’s most popular portable gaming device.’

While this statement came seemingly out of nowhere, no evidence was presented in order to back it up either. According to Edge in order for the statement to be true, the company would have needed to have sold around 150 million iPod Touches to have surpassed the achievements of the Nintendo DS units so far.

The Nintendo handset’s year of sales ending March 31st 2010, saw the total number of units sold reach 128.9 million. Exactly one year later on 17.52 million more units were sold bringing the lifetime sales total to just short of 150 million.

Whether this statement is true or not remains to be seen, but what is evident is that portable gaming is becoming increasingly popular with more and more casual games being purchased in favor of console games. The fact that the new iPhone 4S graphics are now seven times faster means gamers will be targeting the device as they will be getting more for their money, as opposed to buying a Nintendo DS which restricts users to just gaming.

What do you think of gaming on portable devices such as the iPod Touch? Do you prefer it to console gaming?